meta_package_manager.managers.nix module

class meta_package_manager.managers.nix.Nix[source]

Bases: PackageManager

Nix, the functional package manager.

Note

All operations use the imperative nix-env interface, which manages a per-user package profile. Declarative approaches (NixOS modules, home-manager) are not covered.

Channel refresh (sync) and store garbage collection (cleanup) shell out to the sibling nix-channel and nix-collect-garbage binaries installed alongside nix-env, not to nix-env itself.

Initialize cli_errors list.

homepage_url: str | None = 'https://nixos.org'

Home page of the project, only used in documentation for reference.

Slug of the brand mark standing for this manager in the documentation.

Names an SVG vendored under docs/assets/managers/, whose provenance and license are recorded in docs/assets/managers/logos.yaml. Inlined at the top of the manager’s page by meta_package_manager._docs; a manager leaving it unset keeps the page’s default package glyph.

Several managers legitimately share one slug, either because they wrap the same upstream (brew and cask) or because the tool has no mark of its own and its ecosystem’s stands in (apt under Debian’s swirl, cargo under Rust’s gear). Documentation-only, like homepage_url: no CLI output reads it.

platforms: frozenset[Platform] | Group | Platform | Iterable[Platform | Group] = frozenset({Platform(id='almalinux', name='AlmaLinux'), Platform(id='alpine', name='Alpine Linux'), Platform(id='altlinux', name='ALT Linux'), Platform(id='amzn', name='Amazon Linux'), Platform(id='android', name='Android'), Platform(id='arch', name='Arch Linux'), Platform(id='buildroot', name='Buildroot'), Platform(id='cachyos', name='CachyOS'), Platform(id='centos', name='CentOS'), Platform(id='chromeos', name='ChromeOS'), Platform(id='clearlinux', name='Clear Linux OS'), Platform(id='cloudlinux', name='CloudLinux OS'), Platform(id='debian', name='Debian'), Platform(id='endeavouros', name='EndeavourOS'), Platform(id='exherbo', name='Exherbo Linux'), Platform(id='fedora', name='Fedora'), Platform(id='generic_linux', name='Generic Linux'), Platform(id='gentoo', name='Gentoo Linux'), Platform(id='guix', name='Guix System'), Platform(id='ibm_powerkvm', name='IBM PowerKVM'), Platform(id='kali', name='Kali Linux'), Platform(id='kvmibm', name='KVM for IBM z Systems'), Platform(id='linuxmint', name='Linux Mint'), Platform(id='macos', name='macOS'), Platform(id='mageia', name='Mageia'), Platform(id='mandriva', name='Mandriva Linux'), Platform(id='manjaro', name='Manjaro Linux'), Platform(id='nixos', name='NixOS'), Platform(id='nobara', name='Nobara'), Platform(id='opensuse', name='openSUSE'), Platform(id='openwrt', name='OpenWrt'), Platform(id='oracle', name='Oracle Linux'), Platform(id='parallels', name='Parallels'), Platform(id='pidora', name='Pidora'), Platform(id='pikaos', name='PikaOS'), Platform(id='raspbian', name='Raspbian'), Platform(id='rhel', name='RedHat Enterprise Linux'), Platform(id='rocky', name='Rocky Linux'), Platform(id='scientific', name='Scientific Linux'), Platform(id='slackware', name='Slackware'), Platform(id='sles', name='SUSE Linux Enterprise Server'), Platform(id='slitaz', name='SliTaz GNU/Linux'), Platform(id='sourcemage', name='Source Mage GNU/Linux'), Platform(id='tuxedo', name='Tuxedo OS'), Platform(id='ubuntu', name='Ubuntu'), Platform(id='ultramarine', name='Ultramarine'), Platform(id='void', name='Void Linux'), Platform(id='wsl1', name='Windows Subsystem for Linux v1'), Platform(id='wsl2', name='Windows Subsystem for Linux v2'), Platform(id='xenserver', name='XenServer')})

List of platforms supported by the manager.

Allows for a mishmash of platforms and groups of platforms. Will be normalized into a frozenset of Platform instances at instantiation.

requirement: str | None = '>=2.0.0'

Version requirement specifier.

Supports a comma-separated range of constraints (e.g. ">=1.20.0,<2.0.0"). A bare version string like "1.20.0" is treated as >=1.20.0.

Parsed by meta_package_manager.version.VersionRange.

Defaults to None, which deactivates version check entirely.

cli_names: tuple[str, ...] = ('nix-env',)

List of CLI names the package manager is known as.

This list of recognized CLI names is ordered by priority. That way we can influence the search of the right binary.

..hint::

This was helpful in the case of the Python transition from 2.x to 3.x, where multiple versions of the same executable were named python or python3.

By default, this property’s value is derived from the manager’s ID (see the MetaPackageManager.__init__ method above).

version_regexes: tuple[str, ...] = ('nix-env \\(Nix\\) (?P<version>\\S+)',)
$ nix-env --version
nix-env (Nix) 2.18.1
property installed: Iterator[Package]

Fetch installed packages.

$ nix-env --query --installed
hello-2.12.1
nix-2.18.1
python3-3.11.6
property outdated: Iterator[Package]

Fetch outdated packages.

$ nix-env --query --upgradeable --compare-versions
hello-2.12.1 < 2.13.0
python3-3.11.6 < 3.12.0
search(query, extended, exact)[source]

Fetch matching packages.

Caution

Search does not support extended or exact matching. So we return the best subset of results and let meta_package_manager.manager.PackageManager.refiltered_search() refine them.

Caution

nix-env --query --available evaluates the full nixpkgs set and can be slow on first invocation.

$ nix-env --query --available --attr-path --description 'hello'
nixpkgs.hello  hello-2.12.1  A program that produces a friendly greeting
Return type:

Iterator[Package]

install(package_id, version=None)[source]

Install one package.

$ nix-env --install hello
Return type:

str

upgrade_all_cli()[source]

Generates the CLI to upgrade all packages.

$ nix-env --upgrade
Return type:

tuple[str, ...]

upgrade_one_cli(package_id, version=None)[source]

Generates the CLI to upgrade one package.

$ nix-env --upgrade hello
Return type:

tuple[str, ...]

remove(package_id)[source]

Remove one package.

$ nix-env --uninstall hello
Return type:

str

sync()[source]

Update Nix channel metadata.

$ nix-channel --update
Return type:

None

cleanup_cache()[source]

Remove old generations and garbage-collect the Nix store.

$ nix-collect-garbage --delete-old
Return type:

None

id: str = 'nix'

Package manager’s ID.

Derived by defaults from the lower-cased class name in which underscores _ are replaced by dashes -.

This ID must be unique among all package manager definitions and lower-case, as they’re used as feature flags for the mpm CLI.

name: str = 'Nix'

Return package manager’s common name.

Default value is based on class name.

virtual: bool = False

Should we expose the package manager to the user?

Virtual package manager are just skeleton classes used to factorize code among managers of the same family.